<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2017 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'Am I a transgendered strait woman!?',
	'body' => <<<END
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		T-Mobile is being annoying.
		It seems they <strong>*removed*</strong> the option to disable auto-pay.
		That&apos;s why I couldn&apos;t find it!
		It doesn&apos;t help that their tablet-management Web interface is dumbed-down and difficult to use, so you can&apos;t tell if you&apos;re not seeing an available option or if it&apos;s legitimately not there.
		Anyway, if I don&apos;t want my plan to renew, I need to cancel it by the seventeenth.
		I won&apos;t be able to make full use of the time I&apos;ve paid for.
		MetroPCS and Cricket are both encouraging port-ins, but MetroPCS is discouraging port-ins from T-Mobile.
		For now, it looks like I&apos;ll be on Cricket again.
		I&apos;m not a fan of porting, but I also don&apos;t avoid porting when it&apos;s the carrier, not people trying to identify my by a mere number, that offer incentives for porting.
		And now ... if I&apos;m trying to make myself reachable ... I might buy into the idiotic telephone number porting system anyway.
		I&apos;ve updated my $a[XMPP] address to reflect my legal name change, so the new address is on my contact page if you want it.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m ambidextrous, but I favour my left hand.
		This is an artefact from when I became ambidexterous.
		I was born right-handed, but at least three years ago, I decided to switch hands.
		I&apos;d thought about doing it for a while, but on that day, I finally did.
		The goal was to train my body in to use the hand it didn&apos;t know how to use properly, and thus become able to use both hands.
		This little exercise has been a whopping success.
		However, as explained <a href="#mental">below</a>, it may have had negative side effects on my brain.
		Today, I began the process of trying to undo the damage.
		I used my right hand as much as possible, avoiding using my left hand dominantly for any two-handed task, and avoiding using it at all for any one-handed task.
		I kept accidentally cutting pizzas with my left hand, but for the most part, I used the correct hand instead.
		Sweeping right-handedly was awkward though.
		It felt wrong to hold the broom in my right hand and the dustpan in my left, despite that being the way I&apos;d done it for decades before this exercise.
		I think this really shows how much my left hand has become dominant.
		Cutting pizzas right-handedly felt a bit strange, but was mostly fine.
	</p>
	<p>
		I learned two of my coworkers are ambidextrous.
		One is like me; they started as a righty, then corrected the problem.
		I don&apos;t have the details on the other, besides that they can use both hands today.
	</p>
	<p>
		When I got home, I found a note on my door.
		The on-site manager and their parent got me some gratis dishes at a yard sale!
		The person running the sale allegedly just gave them away.
		I now have plates, as well as glasses and more utensils.
		I didn&apos;t have any plates before, so those will be quite the improvement.
		The glasses are nice as well, especially as the cups I already had are plastic.
		If I have guests over, the glasses will seem more ... sophisticated.
		I&apos;ve got plenty of utensils, but it doesn&apos;t hurt to have more.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="library">
	<h2>Library task list</h2>
	<p>
		As I continued reading that library book today, I came across a horrifying section.
		The mother of the gender-fluid child meets up with a transsexual woman.
		She asks her questions, hoping to learn what her child needs in his raising, in case it turns out he&apos;s actually a she.
		One thing the transsexual woman covers is how she wasn&apos;t masculine, but her femininity wasn&apos;t free to come out, so she sort of came out blank.
		Blank like me.
		Am I a transgendered woman!?
		I spent the next two hours analysing my situation.
	</p>
	<p>
		The first thing I realised is that I don&apos;t have to figure it out right away.
		Simply put, it&apos;s too late.
		I&apos;m post-pubescent, so I&apos;ve already missed the deadline for a full transition.
		Whatever I am, I&apos;m stuck with certain male-body characteristics, such as my height and shoulder width.
		Even a few more years of figuring out who I am aren&apos;t going to hurt me now.
		Second, the drugs needed to make the body transition are expensive.
		My parents would never be able to afford them, even if my mother hadn&apos;t been as unsupportive as she is.
		I wouldn&apos;t have been able to make the transition correctly anyway.
		Third, these drugs are likely patented.
		I shouldn&apos;t feel guilty for missing my chance at getting them at the right time, and if I turn out to be transgendered, I shouldn&apos;t use the drugs available at my development stage because they&apos;re likely patented as well.
		Whether I like this body or not, it&apos;s the one I have an ethical obligation to keep.
	</p>
	<p>
		With that out of the way, I still wondered if I was indeed transgendered, even if I couldn&apos;t be a transsexual.
		All through elementary school, middle school, high school, and a bit beyond, I thought I was supposed to have been born a girl.
		I&apos;ve never been masculine, but maybe my lack of femininity was because of my toxic and unsupportive home environment.
		I&apos;ve often fantasised about having a vagina instead of a penis, too.
		Even now that I think I&apos;m gay, I don&apos;t imagine a man cuddling me.
		I imagine <strong>*me*</strong> cuddling <strong>*him*</strong>.
		I also imaging being the one to wrap both my arms around one of his as we stand, or lean on his shoulder as we sit.
		This is traditionally feminine behaviour.
		When I was a child, I had my mother let me grow my hair out, too.
		That didn&apos;t last long, as she didn&apos;t help me care for it like she did my sisters&apos; hair, and as a child with no instruction in the matter, I had no idea how to make it work.
		I ended up having her cut it short again simply so it would be manageable.
		Maybe I only feel agendered because I lack masculinity and my femininity wasn&apos;t allowed to express itself properly ...
	</p>
	<p>
		I managed to convince myself otherwise though.
		For one thing, while I want long hair and have fantasised about having the opposite sex organs as I do, I&apos;ve never wanted a woman&apos;s breasts.
		They seem awkward, and seem like a backache waiting to happen (in some cases, they actually are).
		I guess I&apos;ve daydreamed about having a woman&apos;s side curves, but beyond the vagina, I mostly haven&apos;t had any strong desire to have a woman&apos;s body.
		I&apos;ve never been into makeup.
		I might wear makeup this Halloween, but that&apos;s not the same sort of thing.
		Furthermore, while my desired role in physical contact is feminine, I do not in any way imagine taking on all the feminine roles of the relationship.
		I can wash dishes and laundry, I guess, but in general, I&apos;m not much one for cleaning.
		I&apos;m not into caring for children, and I&apos;m not one that wants to put much energy into cooking.
		Simply put, I&apos;m no housewife!
		That&apos;s obviously not the only role a woman can fill, but it&apos;s the stereotypical one.
		Other roles are often not thought to be so strange when carried out by a man, so there&apos;s not much reason for me to want to be a woman with such roles.
		I&apos;ve never wanted long and/or painted nails.
		I&apos;ve wanted to wear skirts and dresses before, and that&apos;s still something I plan to try out.
		Maybe what I wanted in being a girl was just the freedom of garments?
		Society doesn&apos;t frown on women wearing masculine clothing, but it does frown upon men wearing feminine clothing.
		I&apos;ve never wanted my ears pierced though, as I don&apos;t want to mutilate my body, even in such small ways.
	</p>
	<p>
		And therein lied the most convincing argument I&apos;d yet to dig up against my being supposed to become transsexual.
		I don&apos;t want my body modified, even slightly.
		I don&apos;t want to spend years on body-altering drugs to take on a feminine shape.
		I don&apos;t want my genitals mutilated any more than my parents already had them mutilated.
		I don&apos;t even want to get a vasectomy to prevent pregnancy; I&apos;d rather avoid considering half the human race (and over half the people that would consider me as a partner) as outside my dating pool than get a simple, relatively-safe surgery.
		I certainly don&apos;t want a vagina carved into my body and my penis removed.
		If I&apos;m transgendered, that&apos;s fine.
		There&apos;s no time limit on expressing that.
		However, I&apos;m almost certain I&apos;m not the type to become a transsexual, so the fact I&apos;m post-pubescent isn&apos;t a problem for me.
		One thing is for certain though: I need a nice sundress.
		I need to express my less-masculine side further.
		Whether I&apos;m agendered like I think I am or I&apos;m actually transgendered, this will be very good for me.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t have any more time to waste on this train of thought.
		I&apos;ve lost too much time already, between yearning for a boyfriend and questioning who I am.
		I need to finish up my coursework in the next couple days.
		Why can&apos;t life be easier?
		Why can&apos;t we just know who we are?
	</p>
</section>
<section id="mental">
	<h2>Mental health watch</h2>
	<p>
		I did some thinking today, and it&apos;s no wonder my capacity for relationships was broken.
		My mother frequently shredded my father verbally as a child.
		My father would be in tears ... why would I want to take part in something like that?
	</p>
	<p>
		I feel some heterosexuality in me.
		It&apos;s present, but not dominant.
		It&apos;s said that fifty percent of homosexuals are left-handed or ambidextrous.
		It&apos;s also said that switching handedness activates different parts of one&apos;s brain.
		I was born right-handed, but chose to be ambidextrous.
		I&apos;ve practised for at least three years now, to the point my left hand is just as good as my right.
		Each hand has specific tasks they perform a little better than the other, but the basic strength and precision exist in both of them.
		Did I ... unlock the homosexual side of my brain?
		And now, I think it&apos;s mainly my logical side that keeps the heterosexual side from acting.
		Is it my fault I&apos;m gay?
		I mean, is it my fault I&apos;m gay as opposed to straight, not gay as opposed to my former status as ace.
		If that is in fact the case, that alone would make my years of training worth it.
		Being a sexual at all kind of sucks, but I&apos;d rather be able to have a partner similar to myself than have one with a &quot;normal&quot; sense of masculinity and femininity.
	</p>
	<p>
		I read an article on <a href="https://wasioabbasi.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/never-force-left-handed-child-to-be-right-handed/">switching handedness</a>, and it hints that my having trained my left hand may have been a bad idea.
		A test image shown there shows the right hemisphere of my brain has become dominant.
		This hemisphere is emotional, not logical.
		Is this hemisphere ... Alex Yst?
		Is the more logical <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> the left hemisphere?
		Did I <strong>*crush my logical side*</strong>!?
		No mater how hard I focus, I can&apos;t get the spinning silhouette to seem to spin counterclockwise.
		What if <strong>*this*</strong> is the cause of the rise of my sexuality?
		I need to discontinue use of my left hand for a while.
		If regaining my asexuality just takes a few years of forcing myself to be right-hand (and thus left-brain) dominant, I need to know.
		I might or might not choose to go back to being as I am now, but I need to know if it&apos;s even a possibility to switch back and forth.
		Once I know ... I might have to assert my right brains dominance again.
		The right brain is responsible for philosophy and looking at the big picture.
		It&apos;s probably my right brain that makes me even care about the state of the world, even if that side&apos;s the less logical one.
		This experiment will take a couple years though to pull off.
		I&apos;d better get started.
		Even with my left brain being as submissive to my right brain as it is right now, there&apos;s enough logic and scientific curiosity in me to jump at the opportunity to try an experiment.
	</p>
	<p>
		It might be too late.
		My left hand may atrophy, but I doubt my right brain will forget how to use that hand.
		I likely can&apos;t go back to being right-handed.
		Perhaps my left brain has become less active because I use my right hand so little though.
		In that case, I don&apos;t need a weak left hand, I just need a left hand that doesn&apos;t get used so much.
		If I boost the activity level in my left brain and lessen the activity in my right brain, that might be enough.
		With two-handed tasks, I tend to switch back and forth now.
		I don&apos;t even know which hand is currently acting as the dominant one sometimes.
		With all clear-cut tasks though, I need to do a hard reversal.
		If I can just switch from ambidextrous-favouring-left-side to ambidextrous-favouring-right-side, it might undo the negative aspects of what I&apos;ve done to myself.
		If I&apos;m lucky, some of the positive aspect of what I&apos;ve done to me will remain, and my right brain won&apos;t become quite as inactive as it was before I was ambidextrous.
		My left brain should dominate, but my right brain should play a strong, supporting role.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
